Nintendo also wins at advertising

Nintendo has made a business of manufacturing money printing machines, but how has it done in marketing those machines to people? Well, as you can guess from the title of this post, the company hasn't done too badly.

Phoenix Marketing International's Travel and Leisure Division conducted its Video Game Advertising Performance Index (AdPi) Audit and found Nintendo was the only gaming company in Q4 of 2008 to earn above average AdPi scores. The score, which determines effectiveness and impact in all three media categories (print, television and digital), shows that Nintendo has done a pretty good job of pushing its wares on the populace.

The highest-rated ads were:

• TV: Nintendo's Wii Music; and Activision's Call of Duty: World at War
• Print: Nintendo's Wii Fit; Disney Interactive's Disney Think Fast; and MTV Games' Rock Band 2
• Digital: Nintendo's Wii Music; Activision's Call of Duty: World at War; and Ubisoft's The Price is Right

In order to gauge the effectiveness of an ad, consumers were asked if they would buy the game, if the ad was worth watching again, and if the ad was inspiring or worth talking about. Well, we know of at least one ad that definitely fits the bill.